


Flame and Smoke

by TheTartWitch



Series: Rewrites [1]
Category: Fire - Kristin Cashore
Genre: Archery, Lies, M/M, Male Fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Male Fire. Basically a rewrite of the first bit of Fire. Most likely a one-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sometimes when Fire is tired of Archer's jealousy and Cansrel's madness, he allows himself a moment to think about things from a different perspective; perhaps Mena, the maid, or Jeffi, the stable boy who tends to Small when Fire is busy.

 

Often it simply makes him even more depressed. To serve a monster boy while knowing that his father is the destroyer of all order in the kingdom? Fire does not envy them. 

 

Well, perhaps he envies their humanity after what he did to Cansrel.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The archer who shoots Fire sees his sunset hair and ocean-spray eyes and curses to himself. Desperate with pain and clutching his leg, he reaches out and grasps the man's mind tightly, gently wiping his memories of Fire's face and directing him to help the boy hobble to Archer's house.

 

All the while, he wonders at the empty, foggy feel of the man's mind, but he doesn't get a chance to question the man before he's asleep on Archer's shoulder and the archer is penned into the cages below Cansrel's old house.

Fire wasn’t anticipating the nod from Brigan, when they met in the hills. He thinks later that perhaps, with the sun shining blindingly behind Fire’s head, that Brigan thought he was waving to a human archer. Or perhaps he wasn’t waving at Fire at all, but Archer. Either point would be valid.

Roen’s hold is a welcome sight after the army’s undue attention. Fire knows the stories told by the humans about him; Cansrel’s monster son, beloved by the monster man who kept Nax under his thumb, hidden from sight always by a headscarf and mask of animal hide. With Archer by his side, it is impossible to mistake him for a human. What he didn’t know was that some people believed him to be a monster _woman_. It was disconcerting to find the many minds picturing himself as a full-chested lady with big eyes and rounded hips when he was not. He was slender and quiet and thin-hipped, with eyes Cansrel had always compared to emeralds.

Brocker, the few times Fire had met him, had compared them to a tree in full blush. Cutter had called him sinful, once, before Cansrel had heard and taught him not to say such things to his son.

His first sight of Brigan at close meters was disconcerting.

The firelight blazing behind the man painted an image of Cansrel in the middle of one of his cruel laughs, and Fire froze right there, gaze hidden by the mask but obviously locked on Brigan.

Then the man turned, and as sound rushed like lapping water over Fire’s ears, proclaimed loudly that _they ought to toss her into the fire she was so named for._

Archer snarled something demeaning back before taking Fire’s elbow gently and whispering in his ear. “Fire? What is the matter? Why do you pause?”

And there, right in Roen’s courtyard, Fire blurts, “Cansrel. I had thought… he looked like Cansrel come back to life with the fire behind him, Archer…” Archer has frozen as well, and through Fire’s fog he sees them all lilting a little at his voice.

The fear in it is unmistakable.

Archer is quick in dragging him to Roen’s rooms, where the two dumbfounded brothers are unable to reach him.

“I cannot have children,” Fire tells Brocker when they return from Roen’s hold. “Cansrel loved me, but he would never have permitted me create a child.” The cat on his lap is the only one moving now; Brocker has stilled in his chair like stone. Fire has detached himself; his voice is empty and quiet. “We went to the city to see the horses a few years ago, do you remember? Before?” Brocker nods, and Fire murmurs, “He did it then. We spent the entire day playing with the beasts in the fair, and then at night I fell asleep too quickly. When I woke the following day, the sky was already darkening towards night again, and he told me what he’d done. How he’d had them fix me like a dog so that I may enjoy myself in bed but never sire another of our kind.”

Brocker did not speak, but merely stared at the way Fire’s eyes had stuck to his namesake in Brocker’s hearth.

“How cruel.” He finally says to the silent room, and Fire closes his eyes and lets a single tear escape.

As Fire travels with the army, he is assigned a guard of four women and four men, all of whom seem kind enough. None outright attack him, for which he is grateful.

They are surprised when he tiredly pulls off his headscarf and shakes the dirt and stiffness from his hair, presumably because he is undeniably male. He touches lightly upon their minds, attempting to read the emotions this slight action brings to mind, but they are well taught in defending themselves, and he gets nothing.

One of them takes pity on him and opens an emotion to him. He straightens as he feels it: wonder, care, concern, and confusion.

“Is this you asking why I have said nothing to your commander?” He asks, turning only his head as he limps towards the cot in the middle of the tent. “I do not gather that he would care. Once a monster, always a seducer. It is how these things tend to work, you know.” He stiffly removed his shirt and settled onto the cot. “Trust me, it is easier if I am a woman archer monster than a man archer monster.”


	2. The Fiddle Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Zombification, thanks for the comment!
> 
> That night, with the gift given to him by the hulking gentle giant, Fire plays the army a defiant lullaby and pretends not to feel Brigan's watchful eyes keeping guard behind him.

His fiddle lays ravaged in the trampled grass, obviously smashed to pieces, and he stumbles to Small, twists his fingers in his loving horse's mane and tries not to feel how painful this is.  

Brigan is speaking, shouting, but all that Fire can hear is Small's breath in his ear. His hood is slipping slightly, listing to the side a bit, and he lifts a hand to correct it but he's not paying attention, not  _listening,_ and a fist is gathering hair for him. He freezes, bracing for the hit, the yank, but nothing comes. The hand helps him put his hood back up gently and he realizes he's sobbing into Small's neck. He whispers a quiet thanks, believing his helper to be one of his guards, but when he reaches out the mind his touches is Brigan's. He stills again, barely breathing, but Brigan is already moving away, back towards the prisoner held by Fire's guards. 

That night, with the gift given to him by the hulking gentle giant, Fire plays the army a defiant lullaby and pretends not to feel Brigan's watchful eyes keeping guard behind him. He sweetens the tune and loses himself in the notes, playing everything he has.

He thinks that if it was Brigan, he might be able to forget himself completely or remember all the broken bits he left behind.

**Author's Note:**

> Questions? Things I should add? Prompts for a next chapter??


End file.
